WEBVTT - A Deal With the Devil: Ethan Melzer, Pt. 2 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:02.920 Col Zone Media. 0:00:07.680 --> 0:00:11.120 When we left off last week, it was April twenty first, 0:00:11.680 --> 0:00:15.600 twenty twenty a US Army paratrooper Ethan Melzer was having 0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:18.800 his first chat with the administrator of a telegram channel 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:22.920 for a group called rape Waffen, a splinter cell from 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:26.119 the Nazi terror organization Adam Woffen who was committed to 0:00:26.120 --> 0:00:30.520 the Satanic cult called the Order of Nine Angles. Melzer 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:32.600 didn't know it at the time, but the user he 0:00:32.640 --> 0:00:36.080 was chatting with was a psychologically unstable fifteen year old 0:00:36.080 --> 0:00:39.559 in Canada, and it seems unlikely that either of them 0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:42.680 had any idea that the teenager's online girlfriend was a 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:46.720 government informant. Over the course of the next five weeks, 0:00:46.880 --> 0:00:49.479 Ethan Melzer developed a plan that he hoped would result 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:53.120 in the murder of forty of his fellow soldiers and 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:56.600 hopefully provoke a conflict in the Middle East that would 0:00:56.600 --> 0:01:03.760 claim thousands more lives. I'm Molly Konger. This is weird, 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:22.080 little guys. Just a quick note at the top. I 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:25.640 do want to start off with a correction today. When 0:01:25.680 --> 0:01:28.480 we were talking last week about the Hitler based dating 0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:32.800 system used by the Satanic Nazi cult, I foolishly repeated 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:35.880 a claim that I'd read that the origin of feyan 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:39.040 was unknown, and that's on me. I should have double 0:01:39.120 --> 0:01:42.640 check for myself. The order of nine angles marks the 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:45.679 passage of time in years since the birth of Hitler, 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:48.560 so twenty twenty four would be the year one thirty five, 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:51.800 and they write that date out as y F one 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:55.920 three five, where y F stands for a year of faeyan. 0:01:57.080 --> 0:01:59.600 I did a little more digging around because I just 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:03.320 couldn't accept the explanation that there is no explanation. 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:05.680 And of course, fayan. 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:10.120 Spelled fay e n is almost certainly derived from a 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:15.720 Middle English word faine fay n, an adverb meaning gladly 0:02:15.919 --> 0:02:19.679 or joyfully, which in turn comes from the Old English gaffeon, 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:24.360 meaning to rejoice. So the Nazi wizards are at least 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:28.320 etymologically on track in their choice to refer to the 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:33.480 year since Hitler's birth as the year of rejoicing. You 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:35.120 don't got a hand it to him, but I had 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:38.600 to correct the record on that anyway. Back to the 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:44.000 foiled terror plot. Ethan Melzer was taken into custody on 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:48.919 May thirtieth, twenty twenty, when military authorities detained him He 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:51.720 was standing outside at Camp Betterly, part of a joint 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:55.600 Italian American military complex in Vicenza, Italy, with three dozen 0:02:55.600 --> 0:02:58.760 of his fellow soldiers. They were waiting for the bus 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:00.920 that would take them to the air Stone, where they 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:04.520 would board a flight to Turkey. His platoon had been 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:07.240 assigned to a sensitive mission at in Serlic Air Base, 0:03:07.880 --> 0:03:10.760 a Turkish air base near the Syrian border and one 0:03:10.760 --> 0:03:13.200 of a handful of foreign bases where the US military 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:17.280 is known to store B sixty one nuclear bombs. His 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:20.280 platoon had spent the last few weeks receiving classified briefings 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:25.320 on their upcoming mission. They trained, drilled, and studied terrain maps. 0:03:26.000 --> 0:03:28.480 They sat through a training about possible threat scenarios they 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:31.880 could encounter on their mission and how to spot them, 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:34.640 none of them knowing that the threat was there in 0:03:34.680 --> 0:03:38.280 the room, because all the while Ethan Melzer was passing 0:03:38.320 --> 0:03:41.520 every piece of information he learned on to his new 0:03:41.560 --> 0:03:45.600 friends in the order of nine angles, every detail about 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:48.400 the mission, down to photos he clandestinely took of the 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:52.880 maps shown in the briefing was shared immediately with rape Waffen. 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:57.680 His platoon had originally been scheduled to deploy two days earlier, 0:03:57.800 --> 0:04:01.440 on May twenty eighth. The soldiers standing there with their 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:03.960 packed bags waiting for the bus hadn't been told why 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:07.000 their departure date had been pushed back, but they were worried. 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:10.200 It meant something serious was going on. None of them 0:04:10.200 --> 0:04:11.720 could have guessed, though, that it was one of their 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:16.000 own who meant them harm. But that is the end, 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:18.400 and I said we were going to start at the beginning. 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:24.680 Ethan Melzer was born in nineteen ninety eight to parents 0:04:24.720 --> 0:04:28.040 who only married because his mother got pregnant. The marriage 0:04:28.080 --> 0:04:32.120 didn't last. His father's mother seems to blame Ethan's mother 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:35.599 for this, and they weren't good with money. His father, 0:04:35.720 --> 0:04:37.919 Nick Melzer, bought a house the couple couldn't afford, and 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:40.800 they filed for bankruptcy in two thousand and two, the 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:44.560 same year their marriage ended. His father traveled a lot 0:04:44.600 --> 0:04:48.200 for work, so Ethan lived with his mother by her 0:04:48.240 --> 0:04:51.359 own admission. Ethan's mother, Julie, suffered from alcoholism and a 0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:54.920 variety of mental illnesses, though she didn't get diagnosed until 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:58.400 after her son's arrest, and judging by the court filings, 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:01.680 one thing everyone agree on is that his mother, Julie 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:05.160 struggled to provide a safe and stable home environment for Ethan. 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:10.680 She drank too much, She dated terrible men. She came 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:13.440 from a family of proud clansmen and dated men who 0:05:13.520 --> 0:05:17.400 used racial slurs. She had a boyfriend who beat her 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:20.920 and her son. That same boyfriend had an older son 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:23.360 who allegedly sexually abused Ethan when he was still in 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:28.159 elementary school. Ethan's father remarried when he was nine, and 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:32.200 his new stepmother resented him. When his step siblings were born, 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:34.960 he saw even less of his father. There was no 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:38.120 room for this strange boy from her husband's previous marriage 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:42.480 and his stepmother's new family. When Ethan was in middle school, 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:46.320 his mother's parents died. This sent her into a deep 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:50.040 depression and her drinking got worse. And this left a 0:05:50.080 --> 0:05:53.320 troubled young boy mostly on his own. He spent a 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:56.680 lot of time online. He got really into four chan. 0:05:57.960 --> 0:05:59.160 He started smoking. 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:01.400 Pot in the eighth grade, and. 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:03.839 His mother didn't seem to notice or care when he 0:06:03.880 --> 0:06:06.160 skipped school to stay home and play video games and 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:11.680 get high, and she would sometimes even smoke pot with him. 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:14.440 The psychologist hired by his lawyers prepared a report that 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:18.119 expounds at length about this difficult period in Ethan's young life. 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:25.280 He was overweighted and unathletic. Who's uncool, Who's bullied? He 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:27.760 was starting to realize that he was gay, and that 0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:33.800 terrified him. He liked art and music, not sports. The 0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:36.480 men in his mother's life bullied him, the kids at 0:06:36.480 --> 0:06:40.600 school bullied him, and he retreated deeper and deeper into 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:44.680 the Internet and into drugs. By his sophomore year of 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:49.120 high school, he was using ecstasy and meth. I think 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:52.720 it's important to note that none of this excuses anything. 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:57.440 It barely even explains it. I know plenty of wonderful 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:01.080 people who were fat gay nerds in middle school. I've 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:02.640 come to think of it. I know a lot of 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:04.760 really great adults who would tell you today and that 0:07:04.760 --> 0:07:07.680 they are proud and happy to be fat gay nerds. 0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:11.600 It's a great kind of person to be. But there's 0:07:11.600 --> 0:07:14.080 no denying that it's a difficult state of affairs for 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:16.680 a middle schooler whose stepmother hates him and whose mom 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:19.000 cares more about getting drunk than making sure he gets 0:07:19.040 --> 0:07:23.840 to school on time. That alone doesn't create a monster, 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:28.560 but you can, I think, find a place in your 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:32.520 heart to feel sorry for this little boy. It doesn't 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:34.680 mean you have to feel sorry for the man he became, 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:38.360 and it doesn't change what he did. But there was 0:07:38.400 --> 0:07:43.560 a time when he could have been someone different. There 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:46.440 were days years ago when a little boy who wanted 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:51.040 to be loved and accepted and nurtured didn't get that. 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:56.480 It's okay to mourn the man who never was because 0:07:56.520 --> 0:08:02.480 that sad boy went down the wrong path. He dropped 0:08:02.480 --> 0:08:04.280 out of high school at the end of tenth grade, 0:08:04.400 --> 0:08:06.360 which would have been in twenty sixteen. 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:07.560 I think in. 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:09.920 Twenty sixteen is the date he gives for his earliest 0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:14.120 criminal activity. This was also the year his mother remarried. 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:19.040 His mother describes this new husband as physically abusive, just 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:22.320 as her earlier boyfriends had been, and recounted an incident 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:25.760 in which he choked her until she lost consciousness. She 0:08:25.840 --> 0:08:28.560 says her husband would also punch Ethan, and in one 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:31.360 notable incident, she says he punched Ethan repeatedly as he 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:34.880 lay on the couch trying to cover his face. So 0:08:34.920 --> 0:08:39.160 Ethan moved out. He moved from flophouse to flophouse and 0:08:39.320 --> 0:08:44.800 started dealing drugs. He shot another drug dealer. That shooting 0:08:44.840 --> 0:08:46.319 the when we talked about a bit in the first 0:08:46.320 --> 0:08:50.400 episode does seem well corroborated. I think it really did happen. 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:54.880 But there's also some mention of a possible earlier shooting, 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:57.800 an incident where he shot someone during an attempted mugging. 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:01.360 It's unclear if that when it is corroborated or not, 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:05.959 but according to the psychologist, it was after that second shooting, 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:08.720 the one we know was real, when he realized his 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:13.040 life was falling apart. So he got off drugs, moved 0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:15.680 back into his mom's house, got a steady job at 0:09:15.720 --> 0:09:20.760 a restaurant, and started thinking about getting his ged. His 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:24.400 manager at the restaurant recommended the Job Corps, a program 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:27.959 administered by the Department of Labor that provides educational opportunities 0:09:28.000 --> 0:09:32.280 and job training for low income young adults. In September 0:09:32.280 --> 0:09:35.560 of twenty eighteen, at twenty years old, Ethan Melzer enrolled 0:09:35.559 --> 0:09:38.959 in the Job Core program. His time in the Job 0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:44.160 Core Program is marked by intense contradiction. He was praised 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:47.400 for his positive attitude and his hard work. He was 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:51.719 enthusiastic about joining the military because of his overwhelming patriotism 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:56.000 and respect for family members who had served, but He 0:09:56.040 --> 0:10:00.840 was also ravenously consuming texts produced by the Order Nine Angles, 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:05.240 the Satanic Nazi cult he would soon initiate himself into. 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:09.240 In an interview after Ethan's arrest, his Job Core career 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:13.760 counselor said. 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:15.680 Neo Nazis and white supremacists don't last a week here. 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:18.600 There is no way a kid who has those ideas 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:21.040 can hide their true colors when they are surrounded by 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:23.880 black people and I hear everything that goes on in 0:10:23.920 --> 0:10:26.800 the dorms. Ethan showed no signs at all of being 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:27.959 a white supremacist. 0:10:30.880 --> 0:10:32.960 Another Job Corp employee who worked with Ethan during his 0:10:33.000 --> 0:10:35.560 time in the program said, the kids who come in 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:39.400 with those ideas never last long. They do come, but 0:10:39.640 --> 0:10:43.520 they get into conflicts and they always leave. Another of 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:47.960 Ethan's instructors in the program said, if. 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:50.240 You are a white supremacist, you won't make it here. 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:54.080 Job Corps has a zero tolerance policy. We've had kids 0:10:54.160 --> 0:10:56.440 like that before and they only last a few days. 0:10:56.840 --> 0:10:59.560 We know everything that goes on in the dorms we 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:01.959 have had. I had racist and anti American kids here 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:04.600 and they never make it. They can't hide it. We 0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:05.800 always find. 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:13.520 Out they can always tell they always root those kids out. 0:11:14.679 --> 0:11:18.080 Ethan was a model student. He showed no signs of 0:11:18.160 --> 0:11:23.080 racism or anti Semitism. He was friendly and helpful, and 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:25.880 he got top marks on his evaluations in the category 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:31.360 of multicultural awareness. He was patriotic and looking forward to 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:37.640 serving his country. They can always tell, except he was 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:42.400 lying to everyone. It was during his time in the 0:11:42.480 --> 0:11:44.880 job Corp program that he fell down the rabbit hole. 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:49.079 He started researching the Order of Nine Angles. He liked 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:52.320 what he saw. He downloaded the literature he would need 0:11:52.360 --> 0:11:55.880 to self initiate. He was in contact with other members. 0:11:56.840 --> 0:11:58.840 He was on his way to starting his own nexsion 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:03.960 before he finished the In December of twenty nineteen, just 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:06.800 three months into his nine months at job Corps, he 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:08.360 signed the paperwork to enlist. 0:12:08.160 --> 0:12:09.640 In the Army. 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:11.720 He wouldn't head off to basic training until the following 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:14.800 June after completing his ged, but he knew what he 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:17.320 wanted to do afterwards, and he signed the documents committing 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:21.000 to it. In February of twenty nineteen, he created an 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:25.200 account on Discord, a messaging application originally favored mostly by 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:30.440 gamers as dagger Light. He joined a Discord server for 0:12:30.480 --> 0:12:35.160 people interested in conspiracy theories and the occult. The court 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:39.240 filings don't say exactly which one, but I have a guess. 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:44.599 The nonprofit investigative journalism collective Unicorn Riot has an extensive 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:49.600 database of leaked discord chats. Most famously, they published the 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:52.520 entire planning chat where the Unite the Right rally. But 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:55.880 in the years since, this vault of leaked servers has 0:12:55.920 --> 0:13:01.520 grown exponentially. Obviously, it's not every extremist discord server, so 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:04.120 we're really only looking at a sliver of what's out there. 0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:07.440 But I did find an account I know to be 0:13:07.520 --> 0:13:10.560 Ethan Melzer's in a discord server where most of the 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:14.439 discussion is about Flatter Earth, anti vax conspiracies, nine to 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:19.760 eleven trutherism. Things like that the excerpted messages contained in 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:23.480 the court documents aren't there in the unicorn Riot leaks. 0:13:24.320 --> 0:13:27.120 Those messages may have been shared in private channels or 0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:31.679 deleted sometime before the discord was archived and published, or 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:35.680 maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree entirely, several of 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:38.560 the usernames that are visible in the government exhibits do 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:41.840 appear within this discord server, though, so even if it 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:44.640 wasn't this one in particular, it was one that shared 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:47.240 a lot of the same ideas and the same users. 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:49.200 Either way. 0:13:49.679 --> 0:13:53.760 Ethan got on Discord in February of twenty nineteen and 0:13:53.840 --> 0:13:57.800 he posted, Hello, I have some questions about a group 0:13:57.840 --> 0:14:02.800 I found. Don't know if you walk help. The group 0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:07.400 he was asking about was Temple of Blood. Temple of 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:11.120 Blood is maybe the most prominent North American nexxion of 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:14.360 the Order of Nine Angles, and it is the nexion 0:14:14.400 --> 0:14:16.800 that is mixed up with Adam Woffin during this time period. 0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:20.920 I would be remiss if I did not also tell 0:14:21.000 --> 0:14:24.040 you that the founder of the Temple of Blood, Joshua 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:27.680 Caleb Sutter, has been on the FBI payroll for more 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:32.240 than twenty years, and that certainly complicates the story a 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:36.200 little bit. Sutter came up in the Aryan Nations. He 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:40.600 is a longtime member of the movement. His relationship with 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:43.080 the FBI began in two thousand and three, when he 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:45.440 agreed to cooperate with the authorities after he got caught 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:48.880 up on a gun charge. In an article for Wired 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:51.680 earlier this year, Ali Winston and Jake Hanrahan spoke to 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:55.200 Harvard law professor Alexander Natopov about this kind of arrangement, 0:14:55.800 --> 0:14:59.760 which she calls a deal with the devil. You can't 0:14:59.760 --> 0:15:02.560 get from A to B without an informant, she said. 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:07.040 Sometimes to get close to criminals, you have to rely 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:11.600 on criminals. The FBI has refused to answer questions or 0:15:11.720 --> 0:15:15.360 even comment on their relationship with Sutter, but the truth 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:18.080 finally came out during the trial of Caleb Cole, one 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:20.560 of the Adamwoffin members, who was arrested in twenty twenty. 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:25.240 Ali Winston's most recent investigation into this story indicates that 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:27.880 Sutter may have been involved with the Order of Nine 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:32.400 Angles for years before becoming a paid government informant. So 0:15:33.320 --> 0:15:36.200 it might be disingenuous to say that Temple of Blood 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:39.720 only exists because the government was paying the guy who 0:15:39.760 --> 0:15:42.920 ran it. He may well have started his own nexxion 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:46.400 with or without the one hundred and forty thousand dollars 0:15:46.440 --> 0:15:50.760 he's been paid by the FBI. But maybe he wouldn't 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:54.320 have been allowed to operate with such impunity. Maybe he 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:57.920 wouldn't have had the resources to start and run. Martinette Press, 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:01.479 the publishing house that produced most of the ona materials 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:05.640 available in the United States today, Maybe his influence would 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:10.120 have been curtailed years and years ago before he could 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:15.000 propagate his violent, pedophilic ideology, sewing it into the minds 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:19.000 of young men who would kill for it. I think 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:21.160 one thing a lot of people get wrong when they 0:16:21.200 --> 0:16:25.840 talk about paid informants like Sutter is a belief that 0:16:26.320 --> 0:16:30.520 people like Sutter aren't sincere in their beliefs or actions, 0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:33.160 and that they wouldn't be engaging in these things if 0:16:33.200 --> 0:16:36.840 not for the inducement of the federal government. But the 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:40.240 movement is littered with true believers who make a little 0:16:40.280 --> 0:16:43.000 money on the side snitching on people they don't like. 0:16:44.400 --> 0:16:47.360 Plenty of them think they're clever enough to benefit from 0:16:47.360 --> 0:16:50.520 the enragement. They think they can advance their own position 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:53.360 in the movement by having the state take out their rivals, 0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:56.720 or they think they can curry favor with the authorities 0:16:56.760 --> 0:16:59.600 by dropping a few tidbits of information here and there. 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:04.359 Just because he's getting paid to do it doesn't mean 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:06.399 he wouldn't be doing it otherwise, or that he doesn't 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:11.640 believe it. Sutter's lengthy career as a government informant, the 0:17:11.680 --> 0:17:14.119 amount of blood in his wake, and the number of 0:17:14.200 --> 0:17:18.160 zeros on his checks certainly make him an outlier, though 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:21.720 while admit so, I had to tell you that that's 0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:27.119 unavoidable under the pseudonym Swiss discipline. Sutter was the one 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:30.080 who was really pushing the satanic ideology of the Order 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:32.760 of Nine Angles to the forefront of Adam Woffin in 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:36.240 the year after Brandon Russell's arrest. There's no denying that 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:40.280 did he do it because the government asked him to, 0:17:41.440 --> 0:17:44.320 because he sincerely believed in the things he was saying? 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:52.080 Both neither it's impossible to know, and neither Sutter nor 0:17:52.119 --> 0:17:55.480 the government are talking about it. Honestly, I think it 0:17:55.520 --> 0:17:57.639 would be naive to believe either of them, even if 0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:01.920 they did. Been some rumblings within the movement that the 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:06.320 whole idea is a government operation. Sometimes that looks like 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:09.200 a sort of no true Scotsman's situation. 0:18:08.920 --> 0:18:10.040 For Neo Nazis. 0:18:10.160 --> 0:18:12.520 You know, anyone in the movement who's talking like this 0:18:12.760 --> 0:18:15.520 is clearly a government operative trying to make us all 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:21.240 look crazy. Another theory I've seen is a little intriguing, 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:26.320 if convoluted and very unlikely. But there are those within 0:18:26.359 --> 0:18:29.240 the movement who believe that the government's interest in pushing 0:18:29.240 --> 0:18:32.880 Satanism on them is a strategy aimed at getting them 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:38.000 to disengage. If someone is falling deeper and deeper into 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:43.159 extremist ideology and suddenly they're expected to sacrifice a goat 0:18:43.240 --> 0:18:47.119 and drink its blood under the moonlight, they might say, 0:18:47.440 --> 0:18:50.199 you know what, fuck it. This is too weird, this 0:18:50.240 --> 0:18:50.720 is too weird. 0:18:50.760 --> 0:18:51.320 I can't do it. 0:18:52.560 --> 0:18:56.640 The idea here is that the goal isn't to deradicalize them, 0:18:57.040 --> 0:19:02.040 it's to push radicalization to its most extreme limits, making 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:06.600 it unpalatable, making the movement just too damn weird to 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:10.640 keep up with. Like I said, that's a little convoluted. 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:12.840 I don't know that the government is playing that kind 0:19:12.880 --> 0:19:17.560 of three dimensional chess with Nazis, but it is a 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:21.359 theory I've seen pushed around a little bit. But Joshua 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:25.360 Caleb Sutter's story is a long and strange one all 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:28.159 on its own, and I'm actually saving it until I 0:19:28.200 --> 0:19:30.400 get to a weird little guy I've been fascinated by 0:19:30.520 --> 0:19:35.960 for years. You see, we didn't find out that Sutter 0:19:36.040 --> 0:19:40.639 was an FBI informant until pretty recently, but a fellow 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:44.359 white nationalist who'd known him for decades had been pointing 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:50.359 the finger at Sutter for years. Bill White is almost 0:19:50.400 --> 0:19:55.040 certainly the most prolific jailhouse lawyer in the white supremacist movement. 0:19:56.200 --> 0:20:00.280 I've spent oh god, probably close to one thousand dollar 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:03.680 paying ten cents a page over the last five years 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:08.480 or so buying copies of his ranting and raving court filings. 0:20:09.760 --> 0:20:13.840 He's got a wide variety of grievances and conspiracy theories. 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:18.080 Most of his recent complaints are about unfair treatment inside 0:20:18.200 --> 0:20:22.000 assorted federal prison facilities. The guards are mean to him, 0:20:22.600 --> 0:20:25.720 he was framed for a fight he claims another inmate started, 0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:29.840 he isn't getting adequate treatment for his mental health problems. 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:29.800 And so on. 0:20:31.160 --> 0:20:34.720 But he's also been saying for years that he was 0:20:34.840 --> 0:20:37.560 framed for one of the things that sent him to prison. 0:20:38.760 --> 0:20:42.240 And central to that argument is his fervent belief that 0:20:42.400 --> 0:20:47.040 Joshua Caleb Sutter was working for the FBI. So when 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:49.320 it turned out he'd been right about Sutter all along, 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:53.800 I was stunned. I'm not saying I believe Bill when 0:20:53.800 --> 0:20:56.040 he says he didn't send those emails threatening to kill 0:20:56.040 --> 0:20:59.480 a prosecutor's wife, but it's intriguing that he was right 0:20:59.520 --> 0:21:02.879 about any at all. But I think it'll be a 0:21:02.920 --> 0:21:05.840 minute before we get to my favorite vexatious litigant in 0:21:05.880 --> 0:21:10.040 the federal prison system, so i'll leave it there. He's 0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:12.560 not getting out until twenty thirty seven, so I've got 0:21:12.560 --> 0:21:13.360 plenty of time. 0:21:28.040 --> 0:21:30.040 The ratings of an incarcerated Nazi. 0:21:30.080 --> 0:21:33.760 Aside, no one knew Joshua Caleb Sutter was an FBI 0:21:33.840 --> 0:21:38.400 informant until twenty twenty one, so Ethan Melser certainly didn't 0:21:38.440 --> 0:21:40.840 have any inkling about it when he started asking about 0:21:40.880 --> 0:21:45.560 Temple of Blood in February of twenty nineteen. In the discord, 0:21:45.640 --> 0:21:47.880 he says he encountered the group in a Reddit post 0:21:48.320 --> 0:21:52.000 and started looking into it. He says another Reddit user 0:21:52.040 --> 0:21:55.960 told him it was connected to some shit called nine A, 0:21:57.240 --> 0:22:01.240 and in the discord he says it's just morbid curiosity 0:22:01.359 --> 0:22:07.000 that he's always been interested in really obscure shit. After 0:22:07.040 --> 0:22:09.040 a bit of back and forth with the other users, 0:22:09.720 --> 0:22:16.119 he finally says, so they're Nazi vampires. Okay then, and 0:22:16.240 --> 0:22:18.440 he asks if there are groups out there that are 0:22:18.600 --> 0:22:23.720 even more extreme. Another user asks him you want to 0:22:23.760 --> 0:22:30.840 go full throttle, and Ethan Melser replies yes. A few 0:22:30.880 --> 0:22:34.320 days later, in another discord server, he's asking again about 0:22:34.320 --> 0:22:37.679 the Order of Nine Angles. He is again told that 0:22:37.720 --> 0:22:40.359 they are a neo Nazi Satanic group with connections to 0:22:40.400 --> 0:22:45.040 Adam Woffen, and Ethan Melser posts, this is going to 0:22:45.119 --> 0:22:48.679 sound bad, but I want to go further down the 0:22:48.760 --> 0:22:52.480 rabbit hole. Say someone were to go all the way 0:22:52.520 --> 0:22:55.800 trying to look for these people. How bad of an 0:22:55.800 --> 0:23:00.880 idea is that? Like out of ten? A few days 0:23:00.920 --> 0:23:04.320 after expressing his desire to go down the Satanic rabbit hole, 0:23:05.200 --> 0:23:08.359 Ethan Melzer is having a private conversation with a member 0:23:08.400 --> 0:23:11.480 of the Order of Nine Angles, and he's asking for 0:23:11.560 --> 0:23:13.800 the text that he'll need to read to get started. 0:23:15.400 --> 0:23:19.040 Within weeks, he had accumulated a large collection of PDFs 0:23:19.040 --> 0:23:22.320 and books about the Order of Nine Angles. He was 0:23:22.320 --> 0:23:26.240 communicating regularly with at least two members. He got a 0:23:26.280 --> 0:23:29.400 tattoo on his left forearm of an eight pointed star, 0:23:29.600 --> 0:23:33.520 often referred to as the symbol of chaos. He was 0:23:33.560 --> 0:23:37.320 already deep into his new magical practice before he finished 0:23:37.320 --> 0:23:40.879 the job Corp program. Just a few weeks before he 0:23:40.920 --> 0:23:43.879 showed up for basic training, another user in the discord 0:23:44.000 --> 0:23:46.200 server warned him to be careful. 0:23:48.359 --> 0:23:50.560 Not to dissuade you, but you're kind of playing with 0:23:50.640 --> 0:23:54.080 fire dagger. The Uniform Code of Military Justice has a 0:23:54.080 --> 0:23:56.400 few things to say about members of the armed forces 0:23:56.400 --> 0:24:00.359 holding affiliations with extremist groups. For thee, he thought, if 0:24:00.359 --> 0:24:03.120 you're serious about being initiated or whatever. 0:24:05.440 --> 0:24:08.879 He responded by asking if the army could search his phone. 0:24:10.320 --> 0:24:14.520 Upon finding out that that very likely could happen, he 0:24:14.600 --> 0:24:18.320 said he'd just delete everything before he got there. In 0:24:18.359 --> 0:24:21.280 his last few weeks before his official enlistment date, he 0:24:21.320 --> 0:24:23.439 was trying to convince other members of the Discord to 0:24:23.480 --> 0:24:26.280 form an nexsion with him, and was coming up with 0:24:26.359 --> 0:24:30.879 vetting procedures for members of his nexion. He suggested that 0:24:30.880 --> 0:24:36.760 the group's motto should be total aryan victory. In June, 0:24:36.800 --> 0:24:40.360 he joined another Discord server, this one devoted to discussion 0:24:40.440 --> 0:24:42.439 of esoteric Nazism. 0:24:43.119 --> 0:24:44.400 Some Discord servers. 0:24:44.119 --> 0:24:47.879 Allow users to assign little labels to their account, visible 0:24:47.920 --> 0:24:51.320 to other users next to their name. In this server, 0:24:51.440 --> 0:24:57.320 Melzer selected the user labels Satanism and fascism to describe himself. 0:24:58.560 --> 0:25:01.159